Germinating
by Missie2
Summary: Friction within the Diamond Authority increases as the consequences of the pearl exodus make themselves known.


**Germinating**

 **"What difference do it make if the thing you scared of is real or not?"**

**-Toni Morrison**

Truthfully, Rose hadn't even realized Blue had been talking to her until she heard the words ' _you've been distracted lately'_ and suddenly she snapped into full attention.

"I'm sorry, what?" she spluttered before she could stop herself.

Blue sighed and rolled her eyes.

"I said, you've been distracted lately. Is everything all right?" she re-iterated.

"Yes, everything's fine," Rose told her with an exaggerated shrug, hoping to get her to drop the subject. "I'm just a little stressed, that's all."

"Why are _you_ stressed?" Blue laughed with a touch of scorn. "I'm the one tackling Yellow all the time, _that's_ stressful."

"Yellow makes some good points," Rose told her. "It pays to be vigilant, you know that."

"She couldn't care less about vigilance, _you_ know _that,"_ Blue huffed. "She just wants to swan off across the galaxy ripping up every little hidey-hole. I'll be damned if she wants to waste perfectly good resources on another bug hunt."

 _Bug hunt. How short your memory is._

A visceral flashback took hold of Rose for just a moment, the smell of the spawning chambers and the utterly hopeless terror of knowing just how _many_ were lying in wait...

She shook it off, hard. They were gone. That was certain. She turned her attention back to Blue, who was still moaning about Yellow's wastefulness.

"...if we did cut back, we'd have enough to send more Rubies to the eighth quadrant for terraforming, and that means more substrate so even if she did want to go off on more bug hunts we'd have more than enough..."

"Why are you telling me this?" Rose cut in. "You should tell her. Ultimately, it's her decision."

"Come on, Pink," Blue groaned. "I need you to back me up on this."

"Get White to back you up, I'm staying out of it."

Blue rolled her eyes and stomped off, muttering to herself. Rose sighed with relief. Getting her onto her disputes with Yellow was an excellent misdirection.

…..

When she arrived home, she was almost half a cycle late, and she did her best to sneak in without Pearl noticing.

Since she'd caught Pearl dancing, she had noticed little trickles of what could only be described as _personality_ leaking out of her, and she'd noted them with pleased bemusement. Looking over the pearl owner manuals again, Rose had compared them to things she had picked up from Pearl and found them full of either misinformation or outright lies.

 _Your new pearl will handle any task you find distasteful; pearls are not made to feel disgust._

If Pearl didn't like something (compound mixes, liquid tubing, and for some reason polymer siding) it didn't show on her face, but she picked it up gingerly and avoided looking directly at it, and usually dropped it with a slight shudder.

 _Your new pearl can, within reason, mimic popular music styles but without input cannot create music themselves. Expansion packs may improve this function in the future._

Occasionally mid-task, Rose would pick up on her humming softly under her breath, so quietly she could barely be heard. Mostly it was tunes she'd picked up from holo-casts, but sometimes a few notes of something that Rose had not heard before slipped out.

Pearl would always stop when she found Rose looking at her.

 _Your new pearl is intended to be a placid, peaceful companion to ease your life. Anything that looks like an 'emotional' outburst is likely a glitch and you should contact repair personnel if this happens with your pearl._

Pearl had laughed, exactly once. Rose had been complaining about yet another meeting where Yellow and Blue had been sniping at each other and imitated them; Blue with a nasally whine and Yellow with a deep, barely coherent mumble. Then she picked up White's lazy drone and ended with her tongue dropping out of her mouth. The laugh fell out of Pearl like it had been stuck in her throat, and it caught Rose off guard. She stared.

Pearl's face, for the first time, wasn't blank. As soon as the laugh slipped out, she looked scared. She clamped her hand over her mouth as though she was afraid more would fall out of her.

Rose gently pried her hand away, and winced at the slight tremble she felt running through Pearl's spindly frame.

"None of that now," she softly coaxed. "You're safe here. You can laugh if you want to."

She didn't laugh again, but a slow, very shaky smile took shape on her face. It lit her up from the inside, and Rose smiled too, feeling a similar glow build inside of her.

…..

She didn't tell Sodalite of these new developments. Sodalite, on the rare occasions that she did visit, was fully occupied by the influx of pearls that had made it to her. They were mostly in good condition, a few cracks and scratches but nothing major. Some were beautifully dressed, some almost brand new. There were three that were missing sections of mass due to chips in their gems.

Sodalite was delighted with these new subjects, and was performing surgeries at a rate of three every cycle. Unlike the black market pearls, these pearls weren't so broken in recovery. They were mostly silent, and although they did cry often it was subdued, almost silent.

They were a tactile group when left to their own devices. When Sodalite wasn't testing or operating on them, they huddled in little clusters, wrapped around each other, stroking limbs and 'talking' in those strange little gestures. If you looked closely, you could see that they were immediately brightened by the presence of Rose's Pearl, and folded her into their group as soon as they were able.

"Seven last cycle," Sodalite said by way of greeting. "They arrived together too."

"That's wonderful," Rose said demurely, watching Sodalite clean her instruments with gusto.

Emerald's old pearl, out of her sparkling red gauze and now dressed in a short pale green dress, shadowed Sodalite to her left, looking at nothing but clutching the sleeve of Sodalite's coat.

"She seems rather attached to you," Rose said mildly.

"No more than yours is," Sodalite responded coolly.

"What do you intend to do with them all now?" Rose asked.

"To be perfectly honest, I never thought we'd get this far," Sodalite shrugged. "I've asked Sapphire what comes next but her visions aren't clear right now. It's not a big deal, they don't take up much space."

"It's a bigger deal than you think it is," Rose told her sternly. "They'll be making more pearls to replace the ones going missing, and substrate is running low as it is."

"Should you be telling me that?" Sodalite laughed. "That sounds like classified information."

"Who would you tell?" Rose shrugged.

"Good point," Sodalite admitted. "If substrate's in short supply, there won't be any available to make new pearls. It might refuel the black market for a while, but other than that I don't see any other effects. So a few high-castes will have to settle for their O-boxes for a while."

…..

"We need to send out more Amethyst patrols, simple as," Yellow said, sounding bored. "Frankly, the merchants have been getting away with it for far too long."

"That's not a workable option," White groaned. They'd been over this already.

"There's more substrate out there, we know that," Blue piped up. "If you'd read my dossier, all we have to do is..."

"Terraform, I know," Yellow cut across her with a frown. "We just send a whole bunch of little Rubies off to whatever. They can take their chances with whatever they find there. Fantastic."

"Pink, you've been quiet. What's your opinion?"

All eyes in the room swivelled in her direction. She swallowed, hard.

"I agree with Yellow," she said quietly.

Blue groaned and White glowered silently. Yellow sat back smugly but Rose could detect some relief in her stance, too.

"Nobody _needs_ pearls, they're a luxury good," she explained, feeling a lurch in her stomach as she spoke. "And the manufacturers can't source the substrate illegally, we can clamp down on that at the source. Less Amethysts needed that way. And frankly, I don't like the idea of sending the Rubies into something they're not prepared for."

"Pink, we discussed this," Blue growled. "There is no evidence that any zoatoxes survived. NONE!"

"Do you really want to take that chance?" Rose fired back, rage bubbling up though her demeanour remained calm. "Oh, but it won't be _you_ taking that chance, it'll be the Rubies. And there's probably too many of them as it is, isn't that right?"

Yellow laughed as Blue's face flushed with fury.

"Bravo, Pink," she chuckled. "Nice to see some bite from you, finally."

"There's plenty of substrate to see us through the next three orbits, we have time to figure this out," Rose continued, ignoring Yellow. "But regardless of the shortage, we can't authorize more pearls being created. Not right now."

…..

She felt completely drained as she arrived home, and allowed herself an indulgent groan directed at the ceiling. Pearl looked up from where she had been up to her elbows in the barrel of lead granules and dug herself out frantically, looking as guilty as she possibly could. The sight made Rose temporarily forget herself and laugh.

"You don't have to stop just because I'm here," she said, shaking her head. "I'm going straight to my rest pod, it's been a truly awful cycle."

A thought occurred to Rose, suddenly. Pearl didn't have a rest pod; pearls had small charge pads that did the job for them. It didn't look comfortable, but that was hardly a concern. Pearls could hardly complain, could they? Pearl had been in Rose's rest pod from time to time, mostly to keep Rose company.

"Would you like to join me in the rest pod?" she suggested. "It's been a while since you rested."

She was surprised to see Pearl tense, for just a tiny slice of time, before she relaxed and nodded, looking at her feet. Puzzled, Rose guided her into her rest chamber and they settled into the pod, side by side.

It was a big pod, gently slanted and filled with warming polyfoam. The energy pulsing through the support rods took effect straight away, and Rose closed her eyes with a contented sigh. She only opened them again when she heard a rustling noise, and slowly she glanced over to the side. A sick horror sucked the contentment out of her.

Pearl was unbuttoning her dress, but her hands were shaking so badly she couldn't manage it. Her eyes were closed, trying to find stillness.

" _No!_ No, I didn't mean..." Rose spluttered, mortified.

 _She was expecting this. Only a matter of time._

Rose's eyes flooded with tears, but she savagely, resolutely brushed them away. This needed to be nipped in the bud. No more ambiguity.

She sat up, and took Pearl's hands in her own, looked her directly in the eye and turned her face when Pearl tried to look away.

"This is the only order I'm going to give you, the only one I want you to obey," Rose told her sternly. "Do you understand?"

Pearl nodded. She looked more at peace now, at the thought of obeying a direct order.

"If I ask you, or anyone else asks you, to do something you don't want to do," Rose said. "You will say no. It doesn't matter what it is, if it makes you uncomfortable, you say _no._ Is that clear?"

Pearl nodded.

"I need to hear you say it. Please."

Pearl's mouth opened and closed, with no words.

"Keep trying. I know it's hard, but you need to say it."

" _N...n.."_

The effort was written on her face; it was almost like every natural instinct Pearl had was resisting the word.

" _...NO!"_

Once it was finally out, it filled the pod with an almost physical presence. Something had changed. Pearl looked about herself, surprised by what she had managed to do. Rose grinned, relief flooded her mass.

"I'm so proud of you," she sighed, wiping away tears that were springing up in her eyes again.

A small, pleased smile glowed on Pearl's face.

"Now, I want to ask you," Rose said as she settled in place in the rest pod again. "Would you like to stay in the rest pod and rest with me?"

"Yes," Pearl said without even a hint of a stutter.


End file.
